Abraham Cruzvillegas
Solo exhibition
September 8, 2005–October 8, 2005The Breeder, Athens
“Abraham Cruzvillegas
21.05.05 – 02.07.05
Sonido Pancho
Some time ago, a text by Buckminster Fuller caught my attention; it was about the organization of matter. Once, at his youth, he was on board of a boat, at the back of it, watching the drawn line of sea foam – the “path” that the boat left behind on the water– and asked himself: “How is it possible that the nature organizes itself in a so perfect and beautiful way just in a short time? In order to create such an infinite quantity of spheres, the nature calculates neither with formulae nor with “Pi”, far from it, matter is simply organized by affection: by sympathy”.
*
An experiment of primitive quantum, explained by one of my students, consists of taking seven seeds and throwing them back, then making a drawing of the pattern composed at random order while dropping, then winnowing them and in this way count how many times the procedure is repeated until you obtain again the first random drawing. Formally, I have reached an expansive principle as a chaotic organizing model, at which a tiny operation produces a random pattern, which finally must have an order, an organization, not necessarily comprehensive, at least for me.
*
An interesting manufacturing principle may happen by activating a material -organic or mineral, alive or inert– that any person could have at hand, such as a packet of beans, with a simple operation, piercing them in order to tie them together through a thread and finally create an object: a necklace. It is the simple presentation of the bean as a seed that reunites the infinite potential of a plant, of alimentation, as an attractive object, of an accumulation or a synthesis of energy, but it is also an evident sympathetic organization in and out of the pot, at the supermarket, in the countryside, in its case, in the stomach.
*
I like to confront a series of contexts related to the symbolic meaning of work: the idea of “work” not as a theme but as a fact, without rhetoric, as far as the inversion of human capital in activities apparently indolent is concerned, which appear useless, perverting the concept of efficiency, it goes in the opposite direction of the thinking of a person who works in the name of humanity or that one’s committed to service.
*
The harvest of material which results from conviviality –it’s evidence– becomes a work whose capital is registered not only in the renovation -recycling– of the materials that compose it: cans, bottles, cigarette butts and plastic glasses, but also on the alchemical transformation –symbolic– of collective experience into a sympathetic chaos which is rearranged in an ubiquitous quantum jump, wherever you can find smiles, hugs, dance and kisses. In it’s daring microtonality, variations in space and time depends on the kind of the macrocelebration: while we stroll on it, matter becomes sound.
– Abraham Cruzvillegas
THE BREEDER presents for the first time in Athens the work of Mexican artist Abraham Cruzvillegas.
Artist and writer Abraham Cruzvillegas was born in Mexico in 1968 where he studied Philosophy and Fine Arts at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), next to Gabriel Orozco.
Abraham Cruzvillegas’ unorthodox marriage of materials and objects, produce a poetic universe, where sometimes matter has its own integral meaning leading to unexpected narratives.
Cruzvillegas’ subtle interventions unveil an incredible sensitivity towards the structure and nature of the materials he uses.
The exhibition consists of sculptures and installations. In a glance it appears as if they have nothing in common. Most of them however, are unstable in their display, not defiantly finished and their titles are songs of the late 19th composer Julian Carrillo. Thus they evoke a verbal sympathy that is not to be taken literally.
The dialogue that springs from juxtaposing handmade next to industrially manufactured objects, is at the epicentre of his research.
Abraham Cruzvillegas has exhibited extensively. In 2002 he represented Mexico at the Sao Paolo Biennale, and in 2003 he participated in the 49th Venice Biennale in the section curated by Gabriel Orozco. Museum solo shows include amongst others Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, and Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca (MACO), Mexico. Furthermore he has participated in shows at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and The Hayward Gallery.
In October 2005 he will participate at the 1st Torino Triennale, under the artistic direction of Francesco Bonami.
